8/25/2006

Attention to Detail

By HUMINT

The devil is in the details. This cliché describes the US conflict with Iran better than any other. Sometimes clichés help facilitate cognitive recognition of unfamiliar events. Beyond clichés the mind, my mind anyway, tries to name patterns like the West’s war with Iran. I happen to call the American war with Iran a “Warm War”. Not so “Hot” that CNN and FOX can say American artillery is engaging Iranian targets. Not so cold that a standoff endures while the US and Iran task their experts and industry to prepare for a symmetric confrontation with each other. It’s “Warm” because there’s a war going on – blood is being spilt – but most of the citizens and subjects of US and Iran respectively, refuse to admit there is a war going on at all! Several brilliant Americans who recognize the US – Iran War, call it a “Long War”. I agree with that name because, like them, I predict it will indeed be a “Long War”.

How long? That’s tough to say. It’s going to be excruciatingly long if Westerners refuse to pay attention to detail. Most Westerners miss the details of Iran’s rising. How do Iranian ayatollahs do what they do? Can the West undo the gains they are making? To be honest, no, the West can’t, not this way. Not unless the West comes to understand who they are and how they function. There are nuances one comes to understand when living in the presence of the devil. While the devil may have agents inside the Beltway, he seldom shows his true face there. The devil shows himself on the streets of Tehran, Mashad, Isfahan, and Tabriz. Ask yourself, what does an ayatollah do? They preach! There is nothing inherently evil about preaching per say, but most of the mullahs of Iran commit an ideological crime when they take command of the pulpit. The best of them read and respond to an Iranian crowd so well they can make them cry. It’s like a psychological orgy of pain.

Do this for me, my conservative friends. Take an empathetic leap. Try to understand the mind of a crowd that cries to an ayatollah’s rant. They’re already in pain! They were in pain before they showed up to the prayer – and they need a fix! The drug, and it is a drug, they use to dull the pain they feel is a toxic blend of truth, lies, blame and solidarity. These are the misguided throngs who would strap bombs to themselves. These are the men and women who will take down commercial transportation networks. These are the motivated masses who study in Western universities to learn the nuances of the West. They know what they need to know already. They learn from the West only to gut the West for being Western.

They’re not the only Iranians in pain. Iranians, for whom the fascist Imam’s rhetorical drug has no effect, typically turn to a variety of alternative drugs. Self induced Ignorance is an option. Heroine is another. Ecstasy and marijuana are variations on the heroine escape. Some are so consumed with the tribulations of poverty, survival alone becomes success. When the devil manifests itself as hunger in your child’s belly, what difference does it make that the Americans and Israelis live in fear of Iranian nuclear bombs. Of all the alternatives however the Iranian government only embraces ignorance or a cultish acceptance of their fascist mantra. There’s is the mantra driving this “Warm War”. The West cannot be indifferent to the devil. The devil feeds on the chaos of mass kills no mater who perpetrates them, no mater who dies. Skilled imams can twist any event with their rhetoric. They can lay blame with laser precision.

In the West, “blame” is the other side of the “personal responsibility” coin. Americans are willing to die to take responsibility. In Iraq, where true Americans fight this Long and Warm War with Iran, among other enemies, American blood mixes with Iraqi blood every day. This is an ancient expression of a new and modern kinship. If Iraqis absorb this mutual opportunity they will become an independent member of a family of democracies. By joining this community, with their resources, they could literally distinguish themselves among existing democracies by building a city on the Moon!

Right now however, New Baghdad located in the Sea of Tranquility is just a pleasant fantasy. If the devil is ignored, the details are ignored, more and more Westerners will join the addicted throngs. Instead of Middle Easterners joining an optimistic community of democrats in the West – Westerners will increasingly join the Middle-Easterners orgy of pain. To dull the pain, the most disgusting of Westerns will require a toxic blend of truth, lies, blame and solidarity.

I’d rather live in the Sea of Tranquility today than live with that future.